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The Power Wash
800%
productivity improvement for free
Dan MacLeod
www.danmacleod.com
January 10, 2006
Before:
Scraping off decals with a razor blade tool
In a large vehicle repair shop, about once a year the mechanics
need to prepare used delivery trucks for resale. Part of the
process had involved scraping off old decals that covered the trucks
with a small razor blade tool ─ essentially one inch at a time
using an upward motion of the arm.
It would typically take one or two days to remove all the decals from
a single truck.
I had been setting up the ergonomics process in this company, when
a mechanic was assigned to clean about 20 trucks, that is, about a
month's worth of scraping. On the second day, his arm started
aching, and he remembered my instruction to "tell somebody if you are
having a problem." So he went to the safety committee
chairman, who happened to be the union steward in that shop..
After: Using a hot power wash to loosen the decal . . .
. . . and it peels right off!
The two of them started to brainstorm alternatives, as I had taught
them. After a period of time, it occurred to them to try to soak
the decals with the power wash that they normally used to clean the
trucks. A couple of attempts later, they decided to turn OFF the
cold water in order to raise the temperature of the wash as much as
possible. As it turned out, the hot water heated the body of the vehicle, and lo, the decals
peeled right off.
The new method reduced the time to remove the decals from roughly
one day per truck to one hour per truck, roughly a three-week savings in time for the vehicles
being sold. Plus, it eliminated what might have been a serious
injury to the employee's hand and arm.
Moreover, it was absolutely free, since the power wash was already
at hand.
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